۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗ 𓏲˖ 𑁍 ࣪ ִ ۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗
࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ  ✩◿𝓼𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓽𝓮◸ 🂱 ࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ
i can see you're lonely down there.

Mike kept looking at Theo as her eyes casted out the window, the sun shining down on them, watching the sand from the desert fly by the squeaky van's window. Locke turned to look at Will, he'd been doing the exact same thing. They both wondered what they were thinking about, what was so important out that window that caused them to stare so hard. Theo and Will looked nothing alike, but they resembled each other so much in those moments.

"Should be up on our right." Mike looked down at the map, calling to the front of the van.

"There's nothing out here." Jonathan shook his head, leaning closer to the window shield to check. The van jolted, Argyles eyes shooting open.

"Mm!" he blinked to get use to the light. "We there already?"

"Not quite." Theo mumbled with a small eye roll.

"Already? It's been nine hours." Will stared in disbelief with his words.

"It's gotta be around here somewhere." Mike looked around, Theo leaned against his shoulder to look down at the map. He looked over at her, how close she was to the side of his face. He was waiting for her to put her head on his shoulder so everything would make sense, everything would fall into place. But, she didn't. And he was left confused and questioning everything.

"What exactly are we looking for, my dudes?" Argyle turned in his seat to look at the four in the back.

"Nina." Locke said in return as his eyebrows shot up.

"Some sort of facility." Will agreed with him, a faint toss of his hands.

"A fence. A building." Mike listed on.

Theo exhaled as she leaned back, adjusting her hips in the seat when her thighs stuck to the leather too much. "Something that looks like they trap alien in."

"Or any signs of life would be nice." Jonathan pointed out as he continued to drive straight.

"Since when did we decide Nina was a building and not a small woman?" Argyle looked around the van, pointing a finger to the only girl. "Theodore could be Nina."

"Can promise I am not Nina, last I checked." Theo pursed her lips. "If any of you would like to confirm that, please, be my guest."

Mike rose his eyebrows, shaking his head. "Yeah, she's not Nina."

"Definitely not Nina." Locke added with a wave of his hands.

"Sounds like a small woman to me." he turned back in his seat.

"It's not a small woman." Mike argued with the back of his head.

"Small woman out in this desert would he hard to see." he got his point across as Jonathan side eyed him.

"How is he still high?" Wills eyes widened in shock.

"Probably done so much that it's just apart of his cells now." Locke motioned to his own body as an explanation. "Just smelling marijuana from his sweat glands."

"Locke." Theo shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "Please, no."

"Sure you got the measurements right?" Jonathan turned around to look at Mike.

"Yes, they're right." he confirmed.

"You're 100%, right?" he pushed on.

"Yes!" Mike became annoyed.

"Jonathan." Theo kicked the back of his seat slightly. "He does this shit for fun. I'm pretty certain a nerdy hobby equals to being right in a serious situation after a genius confirms it."

"Thank you!" Mike slapped his own knee then gave hers an awkward pat. Locke frowned his eyebrows together with a very, very, very weird look as Theo side eyed Mike with the same one.

"Maybe the latitude and longitude are wrong." the older Byers wasn't buying it, still trying to think of a reason why they'd been driving straight the entire time.

"Are you really questioning Suzie?" Mike asked in disbelief.

"Yeah." Theo had to agree with raised eyebrows. "It's Suzie."

"She's a genius, Jonathan." Will defended her as well.

"She made the internet person." Locke nodded.

"Even geniuses make mistakes." he pointed out, looking back at them.

"Well, she didn't." Mike rolled his eyes.

"If that small woman is small enough, she could fit behind a small tree." Argyle whispered to Jonathan like it was a huge secret.

"Stop! Just-" Jonathan became over whelmed, slamming on the breaks and putting the car in park.

"What are you doing?" Mike gapped after they all recovered from the sling from the breaks.

"I am stopping us before we get more lost!" he panted in pure stress.

"Take a Xanax, man." Theo leaned back with an exhale. "We aren't even lost, we're on the road of success."

"Oh yeah? And what if someone jumped out and chops our heads off? No one will hear us scream." he let her into his inner thoughts for a second.

"Well, then I'd hope someone would submit our names to Buzzfeed Unsolved." she said back with a toss of her hands.

"Okay!" Mike cut in, yanking the map out. They all knew the drill by now, getting out of the van and giving the large map enough space to spread completely out in the back.

"All right, give me the coordinates." Jonathan confirmed with a nod of his head.

"Um, okay." Will held the map out as Locke rose his hand in the bowl shape, blocking the sun from getting in Wills way of reading them correctly. "Longitude is 116 degrees, five minutes, and 17-"

"Slow down. Slow down." Jonathan cut him off fast.

Theo leaned against the car as Mike looked over to her. She rose an eyebrow at his stare, he tried to mock the same eyebrow raise but ended up raising them both. She hid a laugh, covering it with a cough into her fist.

"All right you just go straight down." Jonathan nodded as him and Mike put their fingers on either coordinate, heading at the same pace and direction. "Like, straight...straight...st-"

They stopped at the X as Mike smacked the map. "Right on the money, as I said."

"It just doesn't make sense." Jonathan huffed.

"Yo, dudes!" Argyle yelled from a hill.

"Oh man, what's he doing this time?" Theo braced herself for whatever he was about to show or say.

"My dudes!"

"Jesus christ." Mike breathed out.

"Come check this shit out!" Argyle yelled, pointing below him.

"What is it?" Mike tossed his arms up.

"You gotta see it to believe it, my dudes!" he waved them over.

"Fifty bucks says it's a piece of grass." Locke looked to Will.

"I don't have fifty bucks." he blinked back at him.

"Neither do I, but you're on." Theo smacked Locke in the arm as the five all walked up the hill to get to Argyle.

"Okay. So no small woman named Nina." Argyle confirmed when they made it to the top with him, fried grass rubbing against their legs. "But you said any signs of life, am I right?"

"Right." Jonathan confirmed.

"Well, these are no regular tire tracks, brochachos." Argyle crouched down to show the tracks in the sand, they all followed. "I mean, look at the trend on these monsters. They're fatties. And you know what that means."

"Military." Mike confirmed, looking over.

"They go far." Theo stood up and looked as far as she could. "If we follow, they could lead us right to the alien camp sight."

"She isn't an alien." Locke rose his eyebrows. "Theo, people could get offended by that."

"Why? Aliens are the coolest." she shrugged with a weird look.

"We gotta go." Jonathan stood up as they all hurried toward the van. Mike got in first, moving over for Theo to join him.

"I like aliens too." Mike looked over at her as Theo met his eye. "You know, the nice kind."

Theo nodded with a half smile. "The nice kind are cool too."

After traveling as fast as they could, they were then surrounded by choppers in the sky and tanks and vans surrounding a small building.

"There she is! There she is!" Mike yelled as he leaned over the chair, spotting El.

"Wh-Wh-Where!" Jonathan yelled.

"Look!" Locke agreed, seeing her too. "In the pink right there in the middle!"

"Yo, what are those dudes doing on the ground!" Argyle shouted at the sight.

"Are those the same guys that came after us?!" Theo yelled with panicked eyes, the suits familiar.

"Is that blood man!" Argyle yelled in a panic as Jonathan gassed it, sending them all back into their seats.

"Look! Look at her hands!" Theo shoved against the window as she saw El's hand extended toward the chopper in the sky, her finger tips shaking as the helicopter began to sputter. "Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit she's gonna crash that plane! She's gonna crash that plane!"

"It's a helicopter!" Mike yelled back over the loud noise from outside.

"Jonathan man, watch it if it falls our way!" Locke yelled, holding onto Wills shoulders as he watched the helicopter start to spin in a circle, getting higher and higher in the sky before El extended both her hands. yanking them back as the helicopter came crashing down, a large explosion right before them. Locke was right as Jonathan swirled to the side, throwing Theo into Mikes arms as he circled the explosion quickly.

"I don't see her." Jonathan looked around.

"I see her." Theo confirmed, catching sight of Els pink cuffs. "Right there."

Jonathan took another sharp turn as Mike held onto Theo again, halting as he hit the breaks. Mike was out of the van first as the others followed close behind as he ran up to El as she breathed heavy on her knees. "Eleven!"

She turned when he caught her arm, gapping at first. "Eleven."

A sigh of relief and a smile went across El's face as the blood from her nose poured into her lips like a lipstick. She pulled him into a hug as they held onto each other. The pair pulled back and leaned their foreheads together. "Is it really you?"

"It's me." Mike stared at her. "I'm here."

Theo frozen, watching them as a terrible feeling formed in every inch of her body, but worse in her stomach and heart.

That's when Locke knew for sure, that's what confirmed it. He stared to suspect something with Mike and Theo, but nothing was too much to know it was true. But the look on her face, the way her lips were frowned down some and her eyes were wide. The way she didn't give a single shit about what was happening around them, just what El and Mike were doing.

Locke knew Theos big secret then. He knew what she'd been hiding from him now. Michael Wheeler. Michael Wheeler was her big secret, and her look of pain gave it away more then anything else ever would.

"Everyone's here." Mike confirmed for El as she looked over, taking in the sight of everyone.

She seemed most taken back with Theo, blinking at her with a questionable look. "Theo."

"Hey." she exhaled, shaking her head. She was not the issue, El was never and would never be the issue. Theo gave her a smile as she walked over and took her flannel off her arms. "I am glad that you are okay."

That look hadn't left her face, but she was good at pretending for El's sake as she gave her the blue flannel around her arms. "Thank you."

Theo nodded as she pulled it on. The Waters girl was beyond taken back when El reached forward and hugged her tightly, getting her bloody nose on Theos bare shoulder as she stood in the black tank now. Her eyes found Mikes over her shoulder, staring at him as she hugged El back before she pulled away to go to Will.

Locke didn't scold Theo for hiding from her, maybe he would another time, but not now. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the forehead.

"Are you okay?" Will cried in joy for his sister. She nodded and said it back.

"Hey, guys." Jonathan cut in on the reunion. "We gotta go. We gotta get you outta here."

Her collar clicked and loosened around her neck. El pulled it free from her neck in confusion, looking over at Brener on the ground as his barley alive state had hit the button to free her.

El dropped the collar and held Theos flannel a little tighter around her, walking over to stand before him. "Papa."

"Eleven." he said back with a chuckle, blood dripping from his lips. "I want you to know i'm proud of you."

Mike looked over at Theo as she stood with Locke, seeing him looking at her but not making eye contact.

"So very proud." he went on to the teenage girl. "You....are my family. My child."

El held his hand as he panted, on his last breath. "I've only ever wanted to help you. To protect you. Everything I did, I did for you. I need you to understand. Please tell me you understand."

El sat there, looking back at her friends as tears fell from her eye. She looked down at him as he begged her again. She stared him in the face and laid his arm down. "Goodbye, Papa."

She pushed up to her feet and faced them all again, walking back and leaving her trauma and pain behind her as they boarded the van with one more passenger.

•

kylie speaks

been too long since i've
updated but i hope this
was worth the wait. i love
seeing theo with el, i loved
them off the bat when they
were in the bathroom together
and theo lowkey told her to
smack angela